Stuffy
by InvaderScribble
Summary: What Ahkmenrah experienced as he was stuck in his coffin and everyone thought he was evil.


All the young man could see was blackness. He could not hear anything, which he supposed was good. It was peaceful, at least. He could tell that he was in a small, enclosed case, fit to match his body perfectly. As he lay, he began to remember.

He remembered playing with his brother when he was a child. He also remembered fighting with his brother as a child. Grasping his mother's hand as she let out her last breath, a messenger, coming to bring the terrible news of his father dying in battle, himself coming into power at pharaoh, due to his father's last wish, his brother poisoning him in his sleep. As he lay, he remembered his name.

Ahkmenrah.

He now knows that he is in his sarcophagus and that he has no idea of the time, month, year... But for the moment, he does not care.

The young king lays in his tomb, aware that his prized tablet, his last possession from his mother, is the only thing keeping him alive at nights, keeping him from going to the underworld, aware of the silky gauze wrapped around his entire body, and aware that time is passing and that everyone that he has previously known are most likely dead or dying as he lays reminiscing about his life.

This thought troubles him slightly, but he realizes that it must happen to everyone, sooner or later.

Except for him.

Days, months, years, and centuries pass as the boy pharaoh lies in a limbo between being truley alive and being merely another undiscovered royal corpse in another undiscovered giant pyramid.

Soon after he realizes this, however, he hears voices, excited voices, as they penetrate his 'final' resting place. They speak to each other in rapid gibberish, snapping Ahkmenrah out of his reverie.

The voices call to more people and he can hear them getting closer to his coffin. Just as he is about to call out to them, to tell them to leave him in peace, he feels the power of the tablet weaken and soon, disappear, as the sun rises.

His mind goes blank.

When he awakes, he can feel motion, although he knows no one is carrying him. What sort of contraption was he in? He could feel the tablet's power radiating from beside his sarcophagus.

Ahkmenrah wonders where the gibberish speaking people are taking him, why they disturbed his peace, and most importantly, how much time had passed since he died.

As he wonders, the night passes and he is vaguely aware of the moving thing stopping and his coffin being carried before he falls 'asleep'.

When the ex-pharaoh awakes again, he hears murmuring voices, speaking the same gibberish of his captors. They seemed to be in a heated debate and, besides the voices, there is a peaceful silence.

Soon, at least to the century old king, the fight is ended and he hears approaching footsteps. Ahkmenrah senses the lid being opened and, simultaneously, the tablet getting further and further away, along with his other possessions. Just as the person reaches down to remove his wrappings, the tablet moves out of the area, making the young man lifeless once more.

When the tablet is restored to Ahkmenrah again, five years have passed and his body has been identified and his tablet deemed as a useless artifact. How wrong the scientists were.

He is aware of many voices speaking around him and footsteps everywhere. He soon identifies the language the people are speaking as the nonsense-words that everyone has spoken since his excavation.

Soon, the voices and footsteps disperse and it is quiet once more.

This happens every night for at least another two years, so eventually he picks up on the language. Just as he masters it, he is moved once more, this time around the world. He unlocks the secret of many different languages, though not as accurately as English, as he soon discovers the gibberish-language is called.

When his world tour is done, he is moved to a permanent place. He knows that this will be his final home from overhearing a conversation between two men unknown to him.

He feels his coffin being moved for most likely the last time. He also feels a heavy slab of rock being moved over the lower portion of the sarcophagus.

Ahkmenrah panics. Why would they put a large stone over him? He had hoped that he could open his coffin and stretch his tired limbs from over 4000 years of disuse. Would he be all alone again in his final home, no one to talk to, no one to help him get out of his coffin, his prison?

As he falls asleep, the first symptoms of claustrophobia set in.

Ahkmenrah hears voices when he awakens. "Do you think he is awake?" a voice asks. It is kind and reminds Ahkmenrah of his father before his premature death.

"I don't know, Teddy." a different voice replies. It reminded the king of his brother, laced with deception and lies. "He might be dangerous. Hello in there! Can you hear me?" this part was directed at the pharaoh's coffin, Ahkmenrah could tell. He tries to talk, but all that comes out is a groan.

Ahkmenrah clears his throat, but before he can talk, the deceitful man speaks.

"He is clearly barbaric." he says and Ahkmenrah growls. He might have been a peaceful man in life, but he hated people who judged before meeting someone. "Do you think it is his golden tablet that brought the museum's inhabitants to life tonight?"

"It must be, Cecil. It's glowing."

The two men walk off, leaving the boy pharaoh all alone once again, without so much as unlocking his prison.

He yells in frustration and bangs on the lid, earning his reputation as the most feared inhabitant if the Museum of Natural History.

Years pass, and every night Ahkmenrah desperately tries to escape his jail cell, as he begins to call it in his head. Cecil and two other men come once a week and soon figure out the mystery of the young man's most prized possession.

The power hungry old men discover that the tablet replenishes their energy every night and they want it. Bad.

Once they plan a way to get the tablet, hire a new night guard and trick him into practically giving them what they want, the come to taunt him and tell him how they will take the tablet right from right under his mummified nose. Ahkmenrah screams profanities at them in every language he knows, threatening that he will stop them, and trying to break his way out of his prison.

Once they leave one night, he calls to the jackal headed guards that stand outside of his chamber in Egyptian, telling them to stop anyone from getting in unless they have a pure heart.

He is left alone.

Almost a year later he hears Teddy enter his chamber once again, along with another voice. 'This must be the new night guard.' Ahkmenrah tells himself. He shouts at them and bangs on the lid of his coffin, trying desperately to warn him to leave immediately, that he is in grave danger.

Ahkmenrah feels the vibrations as Theodore pats gently on the lid to his prison, saying something along the lines of "You are not getting out today, pharaoh!" and then he talks to the new employee about how the tablet brings everyone, and everything, in the museum to life at night.

Ahkmenrah screams himself hoarse.

The next time someone visits Ahkmenrah, it is the new night guard, or Larry as he heard Theodore call him while he was explaining his tablet, and someone else. Someone smaller.

The mummy can hear Cecil as he locks them in and he can hear his guardians try to attack the man and boy.

Ahkmenrah screams, trying to call off the jackal headed statues, begging for anyone to let him out, but only in Egyptian, for he had forgotten that everyone here speaks English in his desperation to escape.

Larry runs over to his coffin and suddenly, the Egyptian can feel the weight of the slab of rock lifted off of his prison. He can hear Larry slide the latches away and Ahkmenrah pushes and kicks the lid off of his coffin. He can hear it hit the wall but it barely registers in the newly freed king's mind.

He sits up for the first time in centuries.

Larry asks the mummy to call off his guards and he does just that, yelling his command in Egyptian.

He then slowly turns his head to the night guard who is stuttering out "Thank you"s until Ahkmenrah stands up out of his coffin.

Through his wrappings, the pharaoh can see the terrified look on Larry's face.

Ahkmenrah reaches up and slowly unwinds his silken bandages around his head as he sees the world for the first time since his death.

Much to the surprise of the night guard and what Ahkmenrah assumes is the night guard's son, the ancient, yet still handsome, pharaoh coughs dust up into Larry's face, causing both of them to start coughing.

"You would not believe how stuffy it is in there!"


End file.
